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About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in add... (More)

About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in addition to writing editorials for more than 15 years. I have served as a director of many non-profits in the Valley and the broader Bay Area and currently serve as chair of Teen Esteem and on the advisory board of Shepherd?s Gate. I also served as founding chair of Heart for Africa and have travelled to Africa seven times to serve on mission trips. My wife, Betty Gail, has taught at Amador Valley High (from where we both graduated) since 1981. She and I both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, as did both of my parents and my three siblings. Given that Cal tradition, our daughter went south to the University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in international relations. Since graduation, she has taken three mission trips and will be serving in the Philippines for nine months starting in September. (Hide)

Fresh thinking on the high-speed rail is welcome

Uploaded: Jan 27, 2016

There is potential good news on Governor Jerry Brown’s pet high-speed rail project.
The high-speed rail has been roundly criticized for selecting a first leg of nowhere to nowhere in the lower San Joaquin Valley. The full plan calls for high-speed trains to run from San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles and then on to Orange County.
The first San Joaquin Valley segment was to continue through the Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains across the high desert and then into the San Fernando Valley. The expense and engineering challenges (bridges and tunnels) to cross the mountains have apparently resulted in some fresh thinking.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the initial segment may be shifted so it runs north from Bakersfield to downtown San Jose in the Silicon Valley. The Mercury News quoted Carl Guardino, the CEO of the influential Silicon Valley Leadership Group, saying, “One of the big winners would actually be our efforts to electrify CalTrain (which runs from San Jose along the Peninsula to San Francisco). High-speed rail comes to San Jose and we electrify CalTrain between San Jose and San Francisco; the winner is everyone who depends on additional speed, with less noise and less pollution.”
The rail potentially could alleviate congestion of I-580 through the Livermore Valley as well as on Highway 152 that runs from Los Banos to Gilroy. A high-speed train could travel from the Los Banos area to San Jose in about 50 minutes—that compares very favorably with the two more or more hour commute for many workers.
It also provides an alternative for residents living in San Joaquin and Merced countries south on I-5 to catch the train to the Silicon Valley instead of slogging up I-5 to I-580 into the Livermore Valley.
Two thoughts:
1. An equivalent of the Altamont Commuter Express along the Highway 152 corridor could be built for far less money and give commuters an option.
2. Extending BART to the Greenville Road area of Livermore at the foot of the Altamont Pass so there’s a multi-modal station with ACE and local buses is a much more cost-effective alternative.
Of course, Southern California, which has the vast majority of the taxpayers in the state, will not want to be left out. SoCal elected officials and business leaders can be expected to argue strongly about what’s in a different plan for their constituents.
Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see that the leadership of the high-speed rail boondoggle take another look at the plan for segments.
Polling shows that high-speed rail is at the bottom of a list of potential uses of taxpayer money. The officials responsible are already 2 ½ years late on breaking ground and have yet to produce a viable business plan that shows how they will build the system and operate it without a taxpayer subsidy (the bond measure forbids a taxpayer subsidy).
Perhaps, it is time for the governor to let this “legacy” project go into the dust bin of history and instead pursue cost-effective measures to improve transportation and repair aging roads and bridges.

Good thing our predecessors didn't consign the building of the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge "to the dustbin of history" back in the 1930s. Or the construction of BART in the 1960s (another public project that engendered strong opposition at the time)?

Where do you think most of the growth in California will occur over the next 50 years, other than in the Central Valley?

If we don't buy the land there now while it is still cheap and build the rail system now, will our children and grandchildren be the ones regretting our lack of foresight? Just as our parents' generation passed on the opportunity to encircle the Bay with BART tracks when THAT land was cheaper?

Posted by Me Too,
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood,
on Feb 1, 2016 at 8:20 pm

How about some of the huge Silicon Valley companies stop moving billions of dollars offshore to avoid paying taxes and then turn around and complain that education isn't producing enough good students and that the government should build these trains because it will benefit "everybody"?